And Jesus said to them, Ye do not know what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup which *I* drink, or be baptised with the baptism that *I* am baptised with?
Two disciples have just asked for the seats nearest the throne. The Lord does not refuse them. He asks a question instead — about a cup and a baptism. Both images point to His death. The real issue is whether their road and His road are the same.
The Lord's first words tell them they asked in the dark. Their confident reply proved the point.
How often the carnal mind betrays itself in the faithful, even in the area of faith! How weak as yet were those destined to be pillars! How the Master shines even in the presence of the most blessed among His servants! They did not know what they were asking. This was no question to put to the suffering Son of Man on His way to the cross. The real question was this: could they drink what it was His to drink? Could they be baptized with the baptism that was before Him? Sadly, ambition, even in the things of the kingdom, is soon followed by confidence in self: "We are able." What an answer!
The two images are not the same picture twice. One is a cup handed to Him. The other is a death.
The more important question at that moment was whether they could drink the cup He drank, and go through the baptism He was going through. They did not understand this either. He meant taking the cup of suffering from His Father's hand, and going through the death of crucifixion as His baptism. How great a contrast this was to their desire for glory and honour!
Taken together, the two words leave no kind of suffering out.
He took in two different kinds of suffering. The cup is inward suffering. The baptism stands for what we are plunged into on the outside. The two together include every kind of trial, inward and outward.
The word "baptism" points back to His own baptism in the river Jordan. It also points forward to the cross.
The Jordan, where He was baptized, is truly the river of death. In the death He took, He was confessing sin and what sin deserved. At a later time, He spoke of it under the same figure as here, a baptism with which He was to be baptized (Mark 10:38).
The cup has a depth no follower can enter.
There was a cup He alone could drink; when it is a question of atonement He is all alone in that. His cup was beyond the power of all created intelligences to share. One only, Himself alone, could drink it. He suffered for sins at the hands of God. He suffered for righteousness at the hands of man. The atoning sufferings of Christ always stand apart. He suffered at the hands of God — not of the Father.
He would not hand out the seats they wanted. What He offered instead was a share in His own suffering.
Christ's humiliation is so perfect, and His self-abandonment so complete, that He says: I have no place to give in My kingdom. It is not Mine to give, except as My Father may desire. And He is the only One who, by His personal glory, had perfect knowledge of everything and a right to everything. But I have something to give you now: it is suffering. Yes — suffering for and with Him is what Christ gives His servants now. It is a high privilege… The highest honour we can have here is suffering with and for Christ.
Their mistake was not wanting glory. It was wanting glory by some other route than the one He was taking.
This was what suited man — not the cross, but the ease and peace and prosperity of the kingdom. Yet the cross was the necessary path to it… It was this He could give: His own portion of rejection and suffering, involving death in this world… The match on earth for that heavenly glory, and for Christ known there, is the cross and rejection — giving up everything here for His sake!
- Ignorance. They asked for thrones. They did not know what stood between Him and the throne. His reply does not crush their hope; it corrects their route.
- Cup. The cup is suffering handed to Him by His Father. The baptism is the death of the cross — the death His baptism in the Jordan already pictured.
- Alone. The atoning part of that cup He drank by Himself. He suffered from God for sin, and that is His alone. He suffered from men for righteousness, and His servants share that.
- Gift. He would not promise the seats. He promised something else: a share in His rejection now, the highest honour available on earth.
- Order. Cross first, glory after. The path they wanted was the one they were unwilling to walk, and there is no other.
And they said to him, We are able. And Jesus said to them, The cup that *I* drink ye will drink and with the baptism that *I* am baptised with ye will be baptised,
James and John have just asked for the two best seats in the kingdom. Jesus answers with a question about a cup and a baptism, then tells them they will share both — but that is not the honour they came asking for.
Their quick confidence grows straight out of the request.
They did not know what they were asking. This was no question for the suffering Son of Man on His way to the cross. Rather — could they drink of what it was His to drink? Could they be baptized with the baptism that was before Him? Sadly, ambition even in the things of the kingdom is soon followed by confidence in self: "We are able." What an answer! Need we wonder that these two also forsook Jesus and fled in the hour of the cross? Yet the Lord seals their answer with His promise of His own bitter portion, inward and outward.
Both words are pictures of one thing:
The word is used to picture the overwhelming sufferings the Lord Jesus endured, to finish the work He came to earth to do... He asked the sons of Zebedee if they could drink that cup, and be baptized with the baptism He was to be baptized with. They did not know the depths of suffering the question involved, and they said they could.
The promise has a boundary. There is a part of what Christ drank that no created being can enter.
There was a cup He alone could drink; when it is a question of atonement He is all alone in that. His cup was beyond the power of all created intelligences to share. One only, Himself alone, could drink it. He suffered for sins at the hands of God. He suffered for righteousness at the hands of man. The atoning sufferings of Christ must always stay distinct.
The other side of the cup is open to them — and to us:
They would drink His cup. That cup held more than the suffering from God; it held sufferings from men, rejection, reproach, and much else besides. In His rejection and sufferings from men they had to enter in. And to this we are also called. "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you might follow in His steps" (1 Peter 2:21).
They asked for thrones. What He offers instead is a gift, not a consolation prize — and it covers every kind of trial.
Christ's humbling is so complete, His self-surrender so full, that He says: I have no place to give in My kingdom. It is not Mine to give, except as My Father may desire. And this is the One who, by His personal glory, had perfect knowledge of everything and the right to everything. But I have something to give you now: it is suffering. Yes, suffering for and with Him is what Christ gives His servants now — a high privilege... The highest honour we can have here is suffering with and for Christ... He took in two different kinds of suffering: the cup, which is inward suffering, and the baptism, which pictures what we are plunged into outwardly. The two cover every kind of trial, inward and outward.
His "you will" rests on something other than their "we can".
Yet He did not explain what they did not understand. They would only learn it through hard experience. They would indeed drink the same cup as He did, and be baptized with the same baptism. That meant being identified with Him in His suffering and death. This was not because they were able for it, but because His grace would sustain them in it. Later, looking back, they would deeply realize this, and marvel that they had been so ignorant.
The two men who overestimated themselves were not written off.
They said they were able to follow Him to death. They are two of the most honoured names of the New Testament. They gave up all to follow the Lord. James was the first of the twelve apostles to die a martyr's death. John was the last to die, after his sufferings on the lonely island of Patmos... They had a Master who knew them better than they knew themselves. He used their fall, like Peter's fall later, for nobler work and a greater place in His testimony than they had imagined or their faith had yet laid hold of.
- Cup asked. Two disciples wanted the highest places. Their ambition turned at once into self-confidence: "We are able."
- Cup explained. The cup and the baptism are pictures of overwhelming suffering and death. They said yes without knowing what they had agreed to.
- Cup reserved. One part of that cup was His alone: He suffered for sins at the hands of God, and no created being can share that.
- Cup shared. What He hands His servants now is suffering from men. Commentators call this a high privilege, not a loss.
- Cup carried. They drank it in the end — not because they were able, but because His grace held them. James died first; John last, after Patmos.
but to sit on my right hand or on my left is not mine to give, but for those for whom it is prepared.
James and John, two of Jesus' twelve disciples, had just asked for the top seats in the coming kingdom. So why does He say those seats are not His to grant, and what does "prepared" tell us about who gets them?
James and John believed the kingdom was coming — that part was faith. What spoiled the request was where they placed themselves in it.
There was true faith that the kingdom would be set up. But, as so often with us, a good deal of unjudged flesh was pushing its way into the realm of faith. They saw the kingdom as a chance for their own advancement, not as the place where the glory of Christ would shine. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," whether it be in obscure saints or leading apostles.
The refusal is not weakness. It is the Lord keeping the Servant's place He had taken.
He had a cup to give them to drink. At least He could lead them to drink it, and tell them they would have it. But He claimed no right to hand out favours in His kingdom. All moral perfection was His, and all the more because of this very position. What is real does not push itself forward like that. He came as His Father's Servant, and He held that place perfectly. All this is in the spirit of perfect submission and nothingness, so that the Father, and He only, may be perfectly glorified.
Commentators differ here. Some read the words as giving up the right to appoint at all. Others hold that the Lord still hands out what the Father has settled.
It was His to give only to those for whom the Father destined it. Christ is the administrator of the rewards of the kingdom. As He was the Servant in suffering, He also shall dispense the rewards and glories of the kingdom.
The word cuts both ways. A place is prepared for people, and grace prepares people for the place.
He does not have the right to hand out promotion in His kingdom. He leaves the choosing to the Father. He gives the special glory that belongs to special work to those for whom it is prepared, and whom grace has prepared for that glory. His portion is the cross; and the cross can give the glory, if anyone will follow Him as His disciple.
The Son leaves this to the Father for a reason. He receives His own kingdom the same way.
Jesus answered with a question. It showed that honour in the coming kingdom will match how far someone has shared His sufferings and rejection. At the same time He showed that rewards in the kingdom go according to the Father's award. The Son of Man Himself is going to receive the kingdom from the hands of the Father, as Psalm 8 and Daniel 7 showed. So the saints too will receive their place in the kingdom at the Father's hand.
He withholds the seats and offers the cup instead. That is not a smaller gift — it is the only road there is.
Moreover if He could assure to them the privilege of suffering for His Name's sake, He could not give them a place at His right hand in the kingdom. He had taken the place of the Servant, and He leaves to the Father to say who shall have a place of special privilege in the day of glory.
The two men were never told they would miss what they asked for. One of them lived to see what the right and left of Jesus looked like.
The Lord tested these men, but He did not tell them they would not be in the place they sought. He also did not tell them that they would. Their request was quite all right in itself, but the Lord applied the test. John was one of the few who stood by the cross. He saw a criminal on the right hand of the Lord and another on His left. Did he think then about this desire of his — this is what I asked for, a place on His right hand, a place on His left; is this what it means for me to get that place in glory?
The Lord had nothing at His own disposal. So His followers can stop campaigning for position.
Wonderful self-renunciation! It is for the Father, for us, that He works. He disposes of nothing. He can give to those who will follow Him a share in His sufferings: everything else shall be given according to the counsels of the Father. But what real glory for Christ, and what perfection in Him! What a privilege for us to have this motive only… And what a purifying of our carnal hearts He sets before us here, making us act only for a suffering Christ, sharing His cross, and leaving our reward with God!
- Prepared, not requested. Asking does not win the seats. They go to those for whom they are prepared, and whom grace has prepared for them.
- Prepared by the Father. The Son of Man receives His own kingdom from the Father's hand, so the saints receive their places the same way.
- Prepared through the cup. He refuses the seats and grants the cup. Honour in that day matches how far someone shared His rejection.
- Prepared in a Servant's hands. He claimed no right to hand out favours. He kept the Servant's place. Commentators differ on whether He will still hand out what the Father has settled.
- Prepared for us, not by us. Since He kept nothing for Himself, we can act for a suffering Christ alone and leave the reward with God.